boardhanger said:
No, I raced amature. Your point? Professional cycling is about making money through corporate advertisement, via TV. And as a lifelong cycling viewer i've begun to turn off races because they have become boring and predictable during the current high-tec 'director sportive' controlled, radio era. And i'm not the only one.
I raced as a professional (a bad one) and now work as a director. I've directed hundreds of races with and without radios. I can assure you from my perspective the sentiments you express about the earpiece's impact on creating 'boring' racing is over-stated.
Or perhaps not. Its true they've enhanced communication inside teams and helped create this 'modern' style of racing where teams are more co-ordinated and cohesive.
But we have also seen tremendous improvements in training and understanding of physiology since 1980. The peloton has become more global, the ability differences amongst riders more narrow. And rider's understanding of pacing has improved remarkably in the past 15 years.
If you take away radios it isn't fundamentally going to change the style. This style of racing is now entrenched in the teams. Leaders in today's teams now 'KNOW' more than ever that their key domestiques are almost as good as them. This creates a powerful desire for them to keep as many players together as long into the game as possible. Removing radios isn't going to change this. Removing radios isn't going to change the modern bike racers improved knowledge of 'pacing' and 'capability'.
I'm not going to disagree that some riders are treated like 'robots' by directors. It is true. But honestly that is a sign of an 'immature' director. Michael Barry has been a critic of the radio, but he wrote a blog after the Canadian ProTour races where he modified his position and articulated really clearly how the radios should be used.
As a director I know:
1) Often in the car am in a poor position to make a good call. I rely on the road captain to do this
2) Information on radio tour is often inaccurate. Yes, it gets relayed, often without direction - I rely on the riders to make the best judgement on how to use that information. I cannot tell you the number of times I've had info I've relayed corrected. Collectively we 'the team' find this info invaluable. We get info from two perspectives, munge it, then make calls
http://michaelbarry.ca/2010/09/two-perspectives/
3) a robot is useless to me. I don't want a rider to be a robot. I NEED competent savvy riders who can race extremely well on their own merits. We do alot of work on this inside the teams amongst the sr. riders (road captains) and directors to teach the young riders the 'game' of bike racing. Racing is still very much a collaborative effort between riders and directors. Radios are just a tool to enhance communication inside the race. There is still a lot of traditional stuff at play - team meetings, camps and what not where the legacy 'art' of bike racing is developed.
You are and arrogant and stupid director if you expect your riders to be robots. If you don't have savvy smart riders you have a weak team. And you will not win as many races. I challenge you to find any director anywhere who would disagree with this.
You are an arrogant and stupid director if you don't realize that your own sensibilities about racing degrade the longer you are out of racing yourself. You remember and continually reference your own 'sensations' from racing. But your key riders will always have better sensations - they are still active riders, its their job to have these skills tuned to perfection. Our job as directors is to use that and channel it to the younger or lesser experienced players - so they develop acute sensibilities of their own.
I would take a team filled with Phillipe Gilbert's over a team of robots any day. TBH I would prefer a bunch of Andreas Kliers tho.
You have to remember we are not always there. Not all races have two cars, TV coverage etc. We get stuck in traffic and become information blind a lot at strategically critical moments. We have to trust our riders to make good judgment calls on their own - this hasn't changed.
Often you may have a player in a break - you may not ultimately expect this move to succeed, but if it has a 20-30% chance of success you need to trust that rider is competent to win. If you have a robot how can you trust that? Also these guys are often playing for other classifications: aggressivity, sprint pts, climbing pts. They have to know how to ride for these classifications on their own.
I suggest you watch the Cervelo Test Team bar tape video series to see how teams actually work. The road captains often make more strategy calls than the director. The director participates like anyone. But the riders are often in a better position to frame the strategy. The director's job is to keep the riders to the commitments they've made. Help them analyze etc. Its still very collaborative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtoex0LOHso&feature=player_embedded#at=37
http://www.youtube.com/user/CerveloTestTeam#p/u/17/yYy39V_79cU
4) They make racing safer. We have heard over and over that the radios create confusion and danger at the front of the race. This is true. But the radios have had an amazing impact on reducing danger and chaos in the caravan. You have to appreciate that there is a remarkable amount of work in a pro bike race that goes on in the caravan. The radios simply lower anxiety, and dramatically improve the flow of this work.
I can also tell you a number of stories where having poor information about potentially dangerous road obstacles has caused serious injury to riders. Would radios and better info have prevented this -YES. So this situation goes both ways.